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What is the Difference Between the Two Kinds of Solar: CSP and PV?

August 13, 2017 |
 by Susan Kraemer

PV enables energy mass production

PV (Photovoltaic) solar works in a completely different way from CSP

All electricity is basically just electrons moving down a wire. Michael Faraday discovered in 1831 that moving an electrically charged wire within a magnetic field could cause the electric charge to move down the wire.

From Faraday’s discovery came the generator; that part of the power block in a power station that turns the steam into electricity. Power stations use steam to get the turbine revolving to rotate the wire within the magnetic field to make electrons move to make electricity.

PV just makes electrons move by pushing them with photons

The way PV makes electrons move is completely different. It’s actually revolutionary. At the atomic level sunlight is basically photons being shot out of the sun and pushing through space till they hit something. A PV panel is designed so that the photons hitting it will push electrons directly.

Photons can push electrons. Within a solar panel electrons are arranged in such a way that they can be knocked out of position by the photons hitting the panel; starting a cascade of moving electrons that eventually wind up pushing electrons out of the socket in your wall.

Because of this utterly different, simple, direct way it makes electricity, a solar panel is just like any other mass produced object, with a simple installation process at utility-scale.

This revolutionary simplicity of PV is why prices at utility-scale have plunged so fast. Because of PV’s simplicity and fast dropping cost, it is inevitable that it will come to dominate the electricity supply for daytime power in most places, which is why PV is changing the electricity grid. 

So, tomorrow’s grid will be well supplied in the daytime, but need more long duration storage to keep producing electricity after dark. This is why, its complement among renewables will be hydro, wind, geothermal and Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) which produces electricity from a thermal power block from thermally stored energy. This thermal energy storage is the equivalent of a pile of coal ready for combustion, or a store of gas stored in giant caverns under towns, to supply a thermal power plant like them – except that sunlight heated this storage.

Here’s how the thermal form of solar works differently:

How CSP Works: Tower, Trough, Fresnel or Dish

And here’s how its thermal energy storage makes it possible:

How solar thermal energy storage works with concentrated solar

 

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